Red Cell

by Richard Marcinko

  “May be crap indeed. But that’s the way they’re doing business these days. They’ve been cut back to a single squad.”

  I knew that.

  “Still a couple of your people there, though—Nicky Grundle and Cherry Enders.”

  Grundle and Enders were my people. My shooters. I’d raised them from tadpole trainees into Frogman hunters. I’d selected them for SEAL Team Six. Then I’d brought them to Red Cell. “They’re the best of the best.”

  “May be. But they’re not doing very much these days. Fact is, Dickie-san, you embarrassed too many base commanders.”

  “That was my job.”

  “Yeah—but you did it too well.”

  He had a point. “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”

  “Yeah—but you’re out. Retired. Red Cell’s still limping along.”

  “I know. Sometimes, I get to thinking that I’d like to be back in the Navy just long enough to take my shooters on one big, balls-to-the-wall op.”

  “So?”

  “So—then I come to my senses.”

  “Smart, Marcinko-san.” Tosho drained his coffee. “So, how’s about you come downtown with me and we’ll get you your Grock, and we can make some plans for your stay here. Like dinner tonight, followed by a tour of a bar or two. I assume you’ve got a huge expense account.”

  “You assume correctly.” I pulled out a two-inch-thick wad of yen notes and dropped ¥17,000 on the table. “That should cover your appetite.”

  “Better leave another twenty-five hundred,” Tosho said. “Aunt Jemima don’t come cheap here anymore.”

  Chapter 2

  IT WAS A TWENTY-MINUTE WALK FROM THE HOTEL TO TOSHO’S office. We cut through back streets and alleys, shouldering our way through the crowds on their way to work as we meandered past dozens of municipal and national government agency buildings, high-rises, modernistic office towers, and corporate headquarters. Even the best city maps can’t do justice to Tokyo’s random pattern of streets and avenues—the place is a maze. For a round-eye like me, who’d only been to Tokyo half a dozen times before and had a hard time making sense of the few street signs, the best thing to do was try to memorize landmarks and work from those.

  Just south of Hibiya Park we cut into an alley behind the Nippon Press Center and followed it around a corner to a dead end. A windowless, six-story building blocked our way. “Back entrance,” Tosho explained. He slipped a key into a gray steel door, opened it, and bade me enter.

  We walked into a dimly lit hallway painted the same dull puke green as the police stations in New Brunswick, New Jersey, when I was a habitual truant and the cops liked to pick me up and give me a hard time. Tosho led the way up three flights of stairs, then past a long line of tiny offices—cubicles really—where dozens of Nip cops in cheap suits plied their trade, tapping endless information into desktop computers, working phones, and shuffling papers. Then it was down another corridor, through a series of security checkpoints, up another flight of stairs, and suddenly there we were, in the Kunika ready room.

  The walls were covered with organizational charts and mug shots of the Japanese crime families, as well as national and international terrorist organizations. An HK poster displayed the prowess of SAS troopers using the MP5 submachine gun as they assaulted the Iranian embassy in London back in 1980. A big, framed, black-and white photograph featured Norwegian Jagers on a high-speed water infiltration. Four SEALs, their M16s and MP5s at the ready, graced a U.S. Navy recruiting poster. There were plaques and mementos from Herr Gen. Ricky Wegener’s GSG-9 antiterrorist squads in Germany, an oversize replica of the unit insignia from the Incursari, Italy’s happy-go-lucky, trigger-crazy, hairy-assed frogmen based at La Spezia on the Ligurian coast, and a pair of mounted bayonets from France’s crack GIGN hit teams.

  I wrinkled my nose. The familiar, acrid odors of bore cleaner, sweat, and tension were unmistakable. A pair of shooters just in from the range, their countersniper rifles in hard, dull, waterproof black Pelikan cases, still reeked of primer as they climbed out of their black assault coveralls. In the corner, a young pup in spandex cutoffs, Bundeswehr tank top, and net-backed, leather weight-pile gloves was pumping iron, grunting as he worked at what looked to be three hundred or so pounds of plate. He was sweating nicely, too.

  A sudden wave of nostalgia swept over me. This place, more than half the way around the world from my home, had the same sights, smells, even the same spiritual gestalt as the locker room at Red Cell’s headquarters at Dam Neck, Virginia, just outside Virginia Beach. I stopped in my tracks, took a deep breath.

  God, I missed my shooters. That was a sentiment I hadn’t let myself express until now. Not in jail, and not in the days afterward. But it was true. I missed my men—terribly. Of all the things the Navy did to me, the most severe was that they took away my men. Because I wouldn’t compromise with the system, I was unceremoniously removed from command, first at Six and then three years later, at Red Cell. After my precipitous retirement, both units were turned over to commanders who ordered them to conform to the Navy system, and in doing so they turned my effective, unconventional warriors into conventional sailors who got killed and chewed up in Grenada, Panama, and elsewhere.

  Even worse, so far as I was concerned, they’d tried to split the men up, so that the unit integrity I’d inculcated, built, and nurtured would be forever dismantled. During my trial and subsequent imprisonment, I’d been told stories that my senior chiefs were being scattered far and wide, dispersed so they couldn’t operate the way I’d taught them to or pass my values to the next generation of SEAL shooters.

  “You okay?” Tosho’s arm dropped onto my shoulder.

  I nodded. “Yeah—I’m fine. It’s just nice to see a bunch of working stiffs again.”

  “They’re a good group of kids.”

  “Seems that way.”

  “C’m’on.” Tosho pushed at a door, led me down a carpeted hallway, and plunked me in a six-by-eight office. “Welcome to your home away from home.”

  I looked around. No window. The place was barely big enough for a small desk, two chairs, and a tiny bookcase. Tosho pulled open his desk drawer and set a pristine Glock 19 on his oversize blotter. “That’s for you.”

  I reached for it, but he covered the weapon with his hand. “Not so fast, Marcinko-san. There are a couple of conditions.”

  “Such as?”

  “First, that if there’s a chance you’re going someplace where you’ll be using this and I’m not around, you call me so I can come along for the ride.”

  “No prob, Tosh.”

  “Good. I don’t need nasty surprises at this stage of my career. Then—” He extracted a copy of Rogue Warrior from the desk. “You gotta sign this.”

  The sticker told me he’d bought it at the airport book store and paid ¥8,500—more than $65—for the $22 book. To a Japanese cop—even a lieutenant inspector, that was a wad of money.

  I was touched. I scrawled a properly obscene inscription and slid the book back to him. In return, he pushed the pistol across the desk.

  I opened the slide and locked it to make sure there was no round in the chamber, then I dropped the empty magazine and hit the slide release. The pistol snapped closed with a satisfying whack. I dry-fired it, noting the easy trigger pull. Impressive. Quickly, I field-stripped the gun, making sure that the surfaces were dry and not overlubricated. I checked the barrel, firing pin, and extractor. Everything was perfect. I reassembled it, slammed the magazine home, and pulled the trigger again to put the gun into its “safe action” position. The trigger was smooth as silk—a terrific feel. Probably shot that way, too. “Nice action, Tosho, suki desu—I like it.” I inclined my head in a traditional Japanese gesture of respect. “Domo arigato—thank you. What a great trigger.”

  Tosho nodded back at me. “Do-itashi-mashite—you’re welcome. Yeah—Glocks like this normally come with five-pound triggers. But they make a three-pounder for their target model, so I bought a bunch and had our armore
r install them instead. It makes a difference—except you’ll probably fire six shots instead of two because it shoots so easy.”

  “Not likely.” I slid the gun into my waistband. It fit beautifully. “Now—what do I shoot when I want to wax somebody, or do I just wave this in their direction and say, ‘Banzai’?”

  “Ah, of course.” Tosho picked up the phone, punched three keys, and barked into the receiver. In a moment, a youngster with a punkish haircut, leather jeans, and a Ralph Lauren T under his Elvis Presley motorcycle jacket entered the room. He bowed to Tosho, handed him a box of ammunition and a second magazine, said something in Japanese, and left.

  “For you.”

  It was fifty rounds of Black Talon—Winchester’s police-grade, man-stopping hollowpoint. Not as good as the handmade hot loads we’d carried at SEAL Team Six, but it would do. “Who’s the kid?”

  “Yoshioka—Yoki. He works the club scene—places in Akasaka like Tangiru, where they do a fifties and sixties number. It’s the latest craze—cocktails and Budweiser beer, and a Wurlitzer jukebox playing lots of Beatles, Beach Boys, Herman’s Hermits, and Dion songs, and a heavy cocaine trade in the bathrooms. We keep an eye on ‘em.”

  “Heavy drug problem these days?”

  “It’s growing. It’s indicative of what’s happening here. Face it, Dick, we’re losing our identity, becoming just another Western nation, with all the associated problems—drugs, welfare, unemployment—the whole bit.”

  “Shit, Tosho, aren’t you overreacting to a couple of fast-food joints, an amusement park, and some Elvis CDs?”

  “It’s not just McDonald’s on Ginza Square, or Disneyland at Narita. Or the rock and roll and the Levis, and the fifties clubs. It’s deeper than that. More dangerous.”

  “Come on, Tosho—you’re sounding hysterical.”

  “Maybe it’s time to get a little hysterical. Look, Dick, for years, we were isolated, self-contained, monolithic. Now we’re a cosmopolitan superpower, and I’m not sure that’s so good. Japanese society is like a sponge, and it’s been soaking up too much of the bad stuff.”

  “It isn’t just happening here.”

  “No, but it’s Japan that I’m worried about.”

  “You’re pretty Western.”

  “True. But I’ve been steeped in classic Japanese culture, too. I took a second master’s degree at Kyoto University, in our philosophy and history. I study kendo—the way of the sword—and other classic martial arts two evenings a week now. These things made me change the way I look at the world. In some ways, we have to be Western—in my job, for example. But in others … no. In fact, we’ve got to turn back the clock in a few areas.”

  This from a Notre Dame grad who liked his Coors Right? I was amazed. “Tosho—”

  “Even here—in my unit—things have changed, too. My men work twelve-hour shifts, six days a week. Now, the government’s telling me I have to give them two days off every week, and I can only work them ten hours a day.”

  It still sounded like slavery to me. “What’s so bad about that?”

  “They’ll lose their Japanese-ness,” Tosho said wistfully.

  “Their what?”

  “Their Japanese-ness. Their moral center. The thing that makes us different from everybody else.”

  “Tosho—”

  “You’re gaijin,” he said, a sad smile clouding his face. “You can’t understand.” He touched his heart. “It is in here. It is the key to our souls.” His expression had become a mask, and I wasn’t about to try to penetrate it.

  “Whatever you say,” I said.

  The cloud disappeared. “Okay,” Tosho said. “Tell me what you want to do first out at Narita. We’ll grab a car and go have some fun.”

  Instead of a car, we grabbed some soup and noodles at a mom-and-pop soba joint around the corner from the police station, slurped our way through two economy-size bowls of broth and noodles, flavored with delicate green onion and a dash of soy. I would have ordered seconds, but mama-san behind the counter’d already poured our tea. We made a quick pit stop at my hotel for some goodies, then headed for Ueno Station to board the Keisei Skyliner express to the airport. Japanese trains are efficient, clean, and—given the astronomical cab fares to Narita—cheap. We paid ¥1,650 a ticket—just over $13. I nodded at the express checkin. Tosho shook his head. He understood. Bags were being checked, but not checked.

  It reminded me of one of the major vulnerabilities of cruise ships—the lack of inspection of the on-board luggage. You could put a 40-Mike-Mike mortar in your steamer trunk and no one would discover it until too late. Same thing with the Skyliner—the train was completely vulnerable. Only at the airport would the passengers cue up for a bag inspection—and that would be cursory. I made a quick notation in the spiral book in my jacket pocket.

  We wandered the six-car train once during the hour-long trip, but mainly I sat, nose pressed to window, looking at the ever-expanding megalopolis called Greater Tokyo as it passed in front of me at sixty miles per hour. We reached Narita Airport Station within thirty seconds of the arrival advertised in the printed timetable.

  There, Tosho and I split up. He would observe, while I did the actual sneak-and-peek. That way he’d get to see how the Nihonjin—Japanese—reacted to this big, ugly, bearded gaijin.

  Almost immediately, we realized that the news would not be good: here I was, carrying a pistol and extra magazine, and my suitcase was filled with explosives. But just being a round-eye was apparently sufficient to get me a friendly nod from the airport rent-a-cop, and a quick wave through the security barriers onto the buses that carried commuters and passengers to the other side of the airport and the main terminal. Give that man an F.

  The policeman at the gate also flunked—he waved me through, although he searched the Japanese passengers. I saw Tosho grimace in disgust. It was more than evident that despite all the memos about my arrival, not to mention the IEDs I’d left behind the previous evening, the security personnel were still oblivious to their situation.

  I abandoned the overnighter next to a trash container and walked to a bank of phones ten yards away. Would someone try to steal the suitcase? Would it flag the rent-a-cops? The answer to both questions was negatory. So, after ten minutes I retrieved it and moved on.

  There were, according to the briefing I’d had before I left, roughly five hundred security personnel on duty at Narita, twenty-four hours a day. Were they all asleep? The fact that my actions hadn’t tickled anybody’s sensors seemed to indicate that they were. Their attitude was bad—complacent and self-satisfied.

  This is a condition endemic to security directors, who tend to be former cops—in other words, tight-assed, rigid, numb-nutted bureaucrats. They, in turn, hire minimum-wage idiots and don’t bother to train them properly.

  What evidence do I have of this? I give you, your honors, a list of hijacked and bombed flights as long as my thirty-five-inch arm, starting with TWA 847 and Pan Am 103. The terrorists could have been thwarted if decent security had been provided by airlines and airports.

  There are two airlines—El Al and Swissair—that train and test their security personnel on a continuing basis. The number of Swissair and El Al flights hijacked in recent years is zero.

  Thus endeth the lesson.

  So, needless to say, my suitcase bomb was still intact and undiscovered. What to do with it? I could have placed it in the temporary holding area within the main terminal and let the timer run off by itself, or been fancier and used a remote firing device, creating casualties in the men’s room or at one of the half dozen bars or restaurants on the mezzanine level.

  Moreover, despite the cops, the undercover agents, the JDF soldiers, and the security checkpoints, I was wandering around the terminal packing heat. What Narita needed was metal detectors at all the front doors. That solution, Tosho and I knew, was unlikely.

  But that wasn’t the question of the moment. That question was where we’d leave our suitcase bomb to make the most impact.<
br />
  We linked up, stopped at a bar, and I ordered two Kirins. “Time to place this little toy,” I said. “Any ideas?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  I suggested the luggage claim area.

  “Too obvious.” Tosho also rejected the storage room and the lockers.

  “What about hitting them so obviously they’ll never realize what’s happening?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m thinking of rent-a-cop HQ.”

  “Brilliant. Coals to Newcastle.” Tosho laughed out loud.

  Yup—it was a terrific idea. I played with the timer while we sipped our Kirin, then took the suitcase—IED smoke bomb inside and timer set for twenty-five minutes—to the rent-a-cops manager’s office. I knocked. No answer. I walked inside.

  “Hello?”

  No one answered. I peered into the office. The place was empty. That figured—after all, the door had been open.

  I saw a bulletin board, with my picture mounted and a note scribbled in Japanese below it. Someone had left his wallet on a desk. I put it in my pocket. Then I slipped the suitcase next to the desk. It was all so simple. Just like when I was an enlisted Frogman back in the sixties, and we did what they call Zulu-5-Oscar, or Z/5/O, exercises in Norfolk harbor.

  Z/5/Os were evade-and-escape drills in which Frogmen like me would try to attach limpet mines to ship hulls, while the ships’ crews tried to catch us in flagrante delicto, otherwise known as bombus interruptus. No matter how hard they tried, they never caught us. Why? Because the officers in charge, just like the security supervisors at Narita, were idiots. They yelled and screamed, but never gave their men any real incentive (such as a twenty-four-hour pass) to catch us.

  Here at Narita, things were much the same as they’d been in Norfolk three decades ago. The officers in charge weren’t motivating the enlisted men, and it showed. An example? You want an example? Okay. Your safety depends on the security guards who man the metal detectors and X-ray machines, right? Right. And how much are those people paid? Minimum wage.